This week's news review | BKEX suspends withdrawals to cooperate with police investigation; new regulations on virtual asset trading implemented in Hong Kong.

2023-06-03 16:00

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BlockBeats will summarize the industry's key news content for the week (5.28-6.03) in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and industry trends.

This Week's Important News Review

BKEX: Suspends Withdrawals to Assist Police in Investigating Suspected Money Laundering

On May 29th, the cryptocurrency trading platform BKEX announced that it is currently cooperating with the authorities to collect evidence and has suspended withdrawals due to suspected money laundering involving user funds on the platform.

Implementation of Hong Kong's New Regulations on Virtual Asset Trading: "Guidelines for Virtual Asset Trading Platform Operators"

On June 1st, the new regulations for virtual asset trading in Hong Kong, "Guidelines for Virtual Asset Trading Platform Operators", officially came into effect. The license for operating virtual asset trading platforms can now be applied for, marking a significant progress in Hong Kong's efforts to become a global virtual asset center. Related reading: "Hong Kong's Virtual Asset New Regulations Officially Take Effect, a Historic Moment for Web3 in Hong Kong".

New Fire Technology Holdings: No business or equity relationship with Huobi Hong Kong

According to the official announcement of New Fire Technology Holdings, the cryptocurrency trading platform Huobi Hong Kong is preparing to provide cryptocurrency trading services to users, and will release a tweet on May 26, 2023. The board of directors of the company hereby clarifies that we have no business or equity relationship with Huobi Hong Kong. Previously, Huobi founder Li Lin had posted on social media regarding whether Huobi HK was related to him personally, and the use of the "Huobi" name in the Huobi App, demanding that Huobi immediately stop infringing on the Chinese trademarks "火币" and "火幣". According to the trading agreement, Huobi is prohibited from using the Chinese trademarks "火币" and "火幣" in simplified and traditional Chinese (Huobi's Chinese name has been changed to "火必").

On June 2nd, About Capital Management, a Hong Kong asset management company, stated to the media in May that the company "will no longer participate in any way in Huobi's affairs" and refused to provide further explanation on the acquisition of Huobi, a cryptocurrency trading platform, in October last year. BlockBeats previously reported that Justin Sun spent about $1 billion through About Capital Management to acquire about 60% of Huobi's equity in November 2022.

Multichain: The CEO is currently missing and cross-chain services for some networks will be suspended temporarily.

Multichain officials posted on social media that in the past two days, due to unforeseen circumstances, the Multichain protocol has encountered multiple issues. The team has done everything possible to maintain the protocol's operation, but currently cannot contact CEO Zhaojun and obtain the necessary server access to perform maintenance. Multichain has requested that its partners stop directly calling the Multichain protocol smart contract for cross-chain operations on affected chains. All affected chains include: Kekchain, PublicMint, Dyno Chain, Red Light Chain, Dexit, Ekta, HPB, ONUS, Omax, Findora, and Planq.

Optimism institutional investors will unlock 73 million OP tokens this Wednesday

According to Lookonchain analysis, Layer 2 solution Optimism conducted three rounds of financing with institutional investors before issuing tokens. Participants include Paradigm, IDEO CoLab Ventures, and a16z. These institutions collectively invested $178.5 million in Optimism and received 730 million OP tokens (17% of the total supply) as a return. At 8:00 on May 31st, 154,618,822.65 OP tokens were unlocked, of which 73 million belonged to institutional investors.

WeChat search now supports Bitcoin exchange rate query service

On June 1st, WeChat search has supported the display of Bitcoin price query service. This service is provided by a mini-program called "Global Exchange Rate Conversion" and can display the real-time price of Bitcoin.

Bali will crack down on foreign tourists using cryptocurrency to pay for expenses

According to local media Antara, Bali will crack down on foreign tourists using cryptocurrency as a payment method in hotels, restaurants, tourist destinations, shopping centers, and other places.

This Week's Popular Articles

"Hong Kong's New Regulations on Virtual Assets Officially Take Effect, a Historic Moment for Web3 in Hong Kong"

On June 1st, the new regulations on virtual asset trading in Hong Kong, "Guidelines for Virtual Asset Trading Platform Operators", officially came into effect. The opening of the virtual asset trading platform operator license application marks a significant progress in Hong Kong's efforts to become a global virtual asset center. This is the first positive news for the cryptocurrency industry in mainland China. Behind the strong support is the competition for talent and capital. However, the increasingly strict regulations on Crypto by the US regulatory authorities have given Hong Kong an opportunity to take advantage of the situation and create a policy pattern of "the East is bright while the West is not". Policies themselves do not equal innovation, but policies undoubtedly provide the best soil for industry innovation. In this world that is increasingly divided by globalization, an open and inclusive policy environment is invaluable.

"Exclusive Interview with Starknet Founder: Looking Up to the Stars, Staying Grounded"

At the recent EDCON conference in Montenegro, ZK became the hottest topic. In the eyes of the "Ethereum core circle", ZK has become the ultimate new narrative that can leverage the next round of industry explosion, comparable to the 2019 DeFi innovation. Eli (@EliBenSasson) was one of the first researchers to combine ZK technology with encryption technology, and he is the founder of Zcash and StarkWare, as well as the creator of zk-STARK. The latter technology standard is the important technical cornerstone of today's Starknet and the entire encrypted ZK track. BlockBeats met this legendary figure during the EDCON conference in Montenegro and in a conversation that lasted nearly an hour, Eli demonstrated strong technical confidence. He revealed to BlockBeats his views on STARKs, SNARKs, and Rollup tracks, as well as his expectations for the Starknet ecosystem.

"Milady before Musk's call: the "network schizophrenic" who went to the extreme"

The "old" project Milady, born in 2021, has become hot again due to Musk's sudden tweet "There is no meme, I love you". Milady's performance in the bear market can be said to be very impressive. From early April this year to Musk's "call", Milady's floor price has tripled. The continued NFT bear market has made us less sensitive to many past "rise logic". If we turn our attention back to "community culture", can we dig out something different? With a strong curiosity about Milady, BlockBeats interviewed three Milady community members who have a deep understanding of Milady: CodyBoy, Tamara, and JChen.

"Creating NFTs on Bitcoin for only $5? Learn about BRC-1155 and GBRC-721"

High issuance costs have always been one of the reasons affecting the Bitcoin NFT market. Although there have been quite a few BRC-XXX protocols recently appearing in the market, the balance between keeping the "original flavor" of Bitcoin NFTs and reducing issuance costs is best achieved by BRC-1155 and GBRC-721, in my opinion.

"Detailed Explanation of Binance Launchpad, is IEO still a good investment opportunity?"

It has been over a year since the cryptocurrency market fell from its peak. Investors have chosen to liquidate and leave the market, while others have left the cryptocurrency market and chosen other paths. According to CoinMarketCap data, the total market value of the cryptocurrency market has risen from a low of $780.9 billion to today's $1.1631 trillion. Undeniably, the cryptocurrency market is still in a bear market. Similar to the previous bear market, the investment hotspots in the cryptocurrency market are changing rapidly, with different sectors rising and falling. What is different is that few people have reviewed the past market trends, especially the IEOs that were popular during the bear market. BlockBeats will explore how much value Binance Launchpad can bring to the industry and users in this bear market, as well as the overlooked patterns within it.

"Revisiting the legitimacy of Crypto: The ideological divide between us and Vitalik"

Last week, the incident of Vitalik Buterin hiding in the mountains caused a stir, and there were also many anti-"V God" comments. However, on the other hand, many Chinese cryptocurrency projects are seeking Vitalik's approval, as if he has become a spokesperson for "high-quality projects" and a symbol of legitimacy. This raises the issue of different views on "legitimacy" between the Chinese and foreign crypto communities. This article uses the incident in the mountains as a reference to revisit the legitimacy of Crypto.